The Khmer Rouge were passionately attached in totally separating the Khmer People from me (Cont'd)

Translated from French by Luc Sâr

The Khmer Rouge were passionately attached in totally separating the Khmer People from me
(Continued)
By N. Sihanouk

Beijing, February 26, 2007

Click here to read Part 1 of this article

It must be said that the Khmer Rouge and their leaders had “played the game” with military and “technical” correction and competence.

I never knew any accident nor incident all along this very long and difficult voyage, [which was] truly Homeric, which included overhead flights of US planes during my “baths” in rivers and mountain torrents, the sending of a special KKK commando which was mercenary to the USA, in charged on killing me (commando that the Khmer Rouge completely liquidated before reaching my convoy in Stung Treng), and last but not least, an attack by US warplanes shooting “Sihanouk and his entourage” which, fortunately, only fell down palm trees, and all of this, without counting the “dropping” of made in the USA cluster bombs along my possible “itineraries in the liberated zones of Cambodia.”

The Khmer Rouge, under the order of Mr. Son Sen, knew how to avoid me of all accident.

On the other hand, in this 1973 year, the Khmer Rouge men did not forget (1) to murder men and women villagers and others who are well known for their Sihanoukism and Royalism, and to prevent our People to show themselves up to me during our stay in the liberated zones (Stung Treng, Preah Vihear, Kompong Thom, Siemreap-Angkor) except at the large mass meeting in my honor at Phnom (the mountain) Koulen (lychee) where the popular masses were “educated” beforehand on how to greet me amiably like robots, without running, smiling, being happy, or enthusiasm towards me and my wife unlike during the SRN era. (2) In this 1973 year, the Khmer Rouge let the Vietcong and North Vietnamese, my allies, know that they (Viets) no longer have the right to keep with them Khmer resistance fighters or others. It was thus that all units of Sihanoukist-Royalist resistance fighters were “transferred” to the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge who murdered without mercy my beloved and heroic Kaun-chau. (3) Following our complete victory on April 17, 1975, and during my stay with the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge (1976…), the latter had the “kindness,” the courtesy to make me visit (see again) Battambang.

Visit of the textile factory from the Chinese aid (PRC-Chou En lai) to Sihanouk’s Cambodia-SRN:

Inside the factory, the “simple” men and women workers (who had not received from the Khmer Rouge Angkar (leadership) instructions regarding their behavior towards me, happily rushed over to me and my wife to hug us and to tell us “without restraint” how they had thought about both of us and that “today” their dream of seeing us again, “just like old time sake!” is finally realized.

At the time when my wife and I had to leave the factory, the Khmer Rouge told the workers to return back to their stations. The truly Kaun-chau of Samdech Euv dared accompany me up to “my” car and, until my car disappeared from their sight, these beloved Kaun-chau never stopped waving happily their arms and hands to show their immense affection towards us both (Monique and me).

x X x

In 1980, in Paris, I met some refugee Compatriots, some of whom were from “Battambang.” The latter let me know that, after greeting me with “too much happiness, enthusiasm, and affection” at their Battambang textile factory, these very sympathetic workers were killed in atrocious manner by the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge in a forest.

x X x

In writing these lines, I cry in my heart and in my soul.

I think of these million of Khmer men and women who had fought, who had made the greatest sacrifice for me, between March 18, 1970 and up to the 1980s decade.

I think of these Kaun-chau who were condemned for “terrorism,” under the Lon Nol regime, and who, in front of the firing squad, and one minute before dying, shouted without thinking “Long life Samdech Euv!”

It is with my boundless affection, my deepest admiration and my eternal acknowledgement that I am paying respect to the very respected memory of these Kaun-chau who loved justice, national independence, national grandeur.

May Lord Buddha, the sky of the Tevodas [angels] take them under their holy protection!

(Signed) Norodom Sihanouk